OSU solar car races out of fiery past

View full sizeA young boy reacts to Oregon State University's solar car, the Phoenix, at the da Vinci Days in Corvallis July 21.Andreea Ioanas/The Pride

About 1,600 people cheered as 11 solar cars sped around the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. On the last day of the 2013 Formula Sun Grand Prix, two laps away from the lead, Oregon State University’s Phoenix started to lag. It limped back to the hot pit. The motor was failing.

“We didn’t have time to diagnose the problems, we just knew that we couldn’t fix it in five minutes,“ said team co-captain Jacob Hamar.

The chance for OSU’s Solar Vehicle Team to redeem itself after a devastating 2011 explosion totaled its previous car seemed hopeless. But the team members weren’t about to give up on the national race.

Team co-founder Kat Han rushed to the Northwestern University team and asked whether OSU could use its motor because Northwestern’s vehicle had been disqualified. Within 30 minutes, the motor was swapped and the Phoenix was back in the race. After 193 laps and 24 hours of racing over three days, the Phoenix crossed the finish line in first place, just one lap ahead of Illinois State.

“We didn’t really believe it,” said Sami Al-AbdRabbuh, one of the race drivers. “We were shocked.”

For members of the Solar Vehicle Team, the championship in late June proved again how teamwork -- both among each other and other teams -- can overcome adversity. Founded in 2005, the team has built three cars, applying what students learned in the classroom to solve real-world problems and make each solar car lighter, more efficient and safer.

Founder Hai Yue Han, who recently earned his doctorate in electrical engineering at OSU, said he became fascinated with electric cars at age 16 when he saw “Race the Sun,” a movie about high school students who built a solar car and raced it in Australia. “From the ages 16-21, I studied as much as possible about electric cars,” Hai Yue Han said.

View full sizeThe guts of the Phoenix are exposed while the Solar Vehicle Team changes a battery.Andreea Ioanas/The Pride

He worked with Kat, his future wife and co-founder, and friends to build their first car in 2008 in a garage before eventually obtaining a lab on the OSU campus.

The Phoenix

How it works: Energy from the sun is absorbed by small, black solar panels covering the outside of the car. The energy is converted and sent to the battery packs, where it is stored for use by the motor.

How fast it will go: Up to 80 mph.

Number of solar panels: 391.

Number of wheels: 3

Cost: $100,000 (in addition to donations and student labor)

They named their first solar car “Raindancer” -- an ironic nod to Oregon rain -- but it was heavy, bulky and ran sluggishly. They built their second car with lighter titanium and named it the Odyssey, but its journey would end too soon, in a fiery explosion.

In July 2011, the solar team was taking the Odyssey to the annual da Vinci Days parade in Corvallis when, along 15th Street, student driver Nick Sitts heard a pop. Then the battery exploded and the car erupted in flames. Sitts escaped within three seconds, but suffered first- and second-degree burns on his arms and face. The Odyssey was reduced to nothing but rubble and a few pieces of salvageable titanium.

“I can’t even tell you how much that affected our lives,” Kat Han said. “Imagine your friend badly burned and the project you put your whole life into destroyed very publicly.”

Like its namesake, the 2013 Phoenix rose from the ashes and brought new hope -- and a new reputation -- to the team, members said.

“People react from, ‘Is this the car that blew up?’ to ‘Is this the car that just won first place?’” Hamar said.

The team upgraded the car’s batteries from the volatile lithium ion to lithium-iron nanophosphate, which is non-explosive. Hamar said the new batteries kept the Phoenix from overheating, a common problem for other teams during the Austin race, when temperatures reached 105 degrees.

The Solar Vehicle Team hopes to race in the 2014 Formula Sun Grand Prix with the three-wheeled Phoenix and build a four-wheeled model to race in Australia in 2015.

The Hans and other team members sometimes spend more time on the solar cars than their own studies, their advisers say. The team works with students from other departments, including marketing, business and even liberal arts.

“They have this good opportunity to do teamwork and also develop very good leadership from doing this,” said adviser Julia Zhang, assistant professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

View full sizeSami Al-AbdRabbuh, an OSU graduate student, sits in the cockpit of the Phoenix before driving it back to the lab on campus.Andreea Ioanas/The Pride

Even the 2011 setback is part of the learning process, said adviser Dr. James Liburdy, a professor in mechanical engineering.

“If you look at any technological advancement, there are a lot of crashes and burns before things get really figured out,” Liburdy said. “It’s the great unknown. We don’t know what the problems are until they happen.”

Hamar said the team is scrutinized by industry professionals and races against top universities in the world.

“That is not something you can get in every club,” said Hamar. “We are often solicited by companies for our engineers.”

View full sizeDr. James Liburdy, professor of mechanical engineering, is one of the advisers for the Solar Vehicle Team.
Dr. James Liburdy, professor of mechanical engineering, is one of the advisers for the Solar Vehicle Team.Emma Brazell/The Pride

Team members hope that the advancements they make in solar vehicle technology today will help realize the dream of a solar-powered passenger car for the masses in the future.

“I have a dream that in 10 years we will have a (solar) car sold to an average-income person,” Al-AbdRabbuh said. “I think we are getting to that day.”